An Open Source MIS

[damien.deakes]

Surely a true web based system is the best route to go down to truly be adaptable and quick to update.

And if a cloud based solution is the answers then I would love to be involved.

[garrysaddington]

I'd be interested, but support, stability and meeting changing government requirements will make or break it.

 

1) The next time the government decides to change the census goalposts, how quickly can you adapt the software to suit?

2) Is there decent support at an appropriate level to a) a primary school "person stuck with MIS managment role" b) me c) an LEA rolling it out across a borough?

3) Is it stable and secure - in the case of things dealing with pupil data, has there been an independent code review?

4) How well does it handle mangled data from other MIS? This will happen and it must do so gracefully - getting another school not to be rubbish at producing .ctf files in an exercise in futility.

 

I'll use your numbers to answer.

1/About a day would be needed for adaptation. We have supplier log ins to the collect system for testing.

2/We will be providing support and other services, which will hopefully fund further maintenance and development by the in house team.

3/That's what open source is all about - you can see the code. However, have you or anyone else ever seen the SIMS code?

4/Gracefully. The data is cleaned and tested before it goes in, and validated against the XSD schemas provided by the *old* DCSF for common transfer files.

 

All government defined formats are used, however everything may change with a new government, but being open and web based we are agile enough to respond to any changes.

[CyberNerd]

Surely a true web based system is the best route to go down to truly be adaptable and quick to update.

And if a cloud based solution is the answers then I would love to be involved.

 

join the schooltool project then

SchoolTool: free gradebook, attendance, calendars and more.

[garrysaddington]

Surely a true web based system is the best route to go down to truly be adaptable and quick to update.

And if a cloud based solution is the answers then I would love to be involved.

 

Yep, cloud based is the direction we are heading in. Thanks for your offer.

[garrysaddington]

join the schooltool project then

SchoolTool: free gradebook, attendance, calendars and more.

 

What, we are talking UK MIS. Schooltool can not be used as a replacement for the proprietary MIS's in use in UK schools.

[GrumbleDook]

Why can't SchoolTool or any of other already started projects be used?

[timzim]

Do I detect a note of disbelief here?

 

I was wondering where they have both free speech and free beer? Either would be a start...I'll move tomorrow..

[CyberNerd]

What, we are talking UK MIS. Schooltool can not be used as a replacement for the proprietary MIS's in use in UK schools.

 

It's opensource, you can modify it how you want.

[garrysaddington]

Why can't SchoolTool or any of other already started projects be used?

 

Because this is a finished project. I am only guaging interest level from the people with the most likely ability to get involved.

[garrysaddington]

It's opensource, you can modify it how you want.

 

I don't think you have read the thread completely. I know that, but why would you start from something that is far from useable when I am starting from something that can be used now.

[Sarconia]

Do you have a source for this assertion, as it may help in our decisions.

As an aside, why are UK educational institutions which are in fact multi million pound businesses and supposedly run by intelligent people so far behind in their IT use. Real businesses are embracing open source technology with open arms and are profiting by it.

 

There are many reasons as to why people are scared of open source, the most common one has already been stated earlier in the thread, that most users are on their own and if anything goes wrong, they don't know how to fix it.

 

Also, it's a new system to the users, people in general are mostly inherently afraid of change and anything unknown, I have many users who call me and often it's a very simple query because they are scared to click and find out what the icon does for fear of messing anything up.

 

A lack of training is apparent as well, users don't spend the time to at least have a quick glance at the hardware/software manuals - they just plough straight in and if whatever it is they are trying to use doesn't work how they think it should in their (sometimes illogical) brains then that also causes problems.

 

A lot of teachers (not all of them) try to fight against new technology being implemented, usually with an excuse something along the lines of "it'll disrupt my lesson" as they are apprehensive at first, if you can get them over that hurdle though, they'll then turn around and say "how did I ever manage without this?".

 

On a side note: Gah, DCSF rebranded already!

[CyberNerd]

I don't think you have read the thread completely. I know that, but why would you start from something that is far from useable when I am starting from something that can be used now.

 

All projects are 'far from usable' at some point. I wouldn't want to have reinvented the wheel unless there was a fundamental flaw in something. My philosophy would be to add to existing projects and make them usable. Schooltool has't been updated for sometime, but OSS projects don't usually get 'finished' until they run out of funding.

[powdarrmonkey]

The developers.

 

I'm sorry, but if you're going to be opaque you can count me out.

 

edit - wait, if this is already finished, why are you seeking contributions?

Edited May 19, 2010 by powdarrmonkey

[kingswood]

I think more tangible information is needed before saying we will/will not help? What can the system do? What can't it do more importantly? How does it stack up against our pretty solid implementation of SIMS? At the moment this sounds like a political manifesto- lots of words but no substance!

 

Also, having a look at a website would be good and possibly getting our hands on a demo of some kind without playing with live data (a Bad Thing ™).

[NickBryson]

I would like to understand better what Garry wants from us - what sort of contribution - financial, technical, product development - its very unclear.

[dhicks]

the "something that people wanted it to do" bit could well be reporting and results analysis

 

More specifically, we could do with somewhere for teaching staff to type internal test scores in to for storage and analysis and we could do with something to analyse our GCSE / A-Level results and produce some pretty graphics. I already have some code written for both of these, making that code part of a wider, more supportable system sounds like a sensible idea.

 

--

David Hicks

[Tyiell]

I'm sorry, but if you're going to be opaque you can count me out.

 

Ditto. If more information is given I would help where I can (I bring little to the table when it comes to programming, but I would happily test it and promote it as far as possible), however keeping the identity of "the developers" hidden and not providing a website or trial version seems a little contrary to the concept of Open Source IMO.

[SYNACK]

Also, having a look at a website would be good and possibly getting our hands on a demo of some kind without playing with live data (a Bad Thing ™).

 

In his profile garrysaddington is listed as the Lead Developer for ScholarPack LTD. ScholarPack | School MIS | School Management Information System which has been discussed on here before: -

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/52079-most-people-thought-impossible.html

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/31766-open-source-2.html#post310364

 

- but does not seem to have made all that much headway. The idea of an opensource system is a nice one but it is kind of like trying to introduce sustainable fusion based power to cavemen. With most schools moving to, setting up and training for their MIS systems are the hardest technological things they do (from a general staff prospective). It is at the core of the school and people want assurances, support and training which they are happy to pay for. There is also a massive amount of vendor lockin as the data is locked away in one brands MIS with not only a technological workload but also a huge training workload to unlock it.

 

From a vendor lockin prospective this kind of barrier to entry for compeditors would even make Apple jealous. I think for a project like this to truely move foward in the majority of schools an organsiation would need to be formed to provide these crutches/training wheels. Without a solid foundation to build on most schools would be very unlikely at this point at least to move over. That and the retraining costs and effort involved is not something that most schools are used to or willing to accept in the technology field unlike in a business environment where retraining is expected and accepted.

Edited May 19, 2010 by SYNACK

[GrumbleDook]

Because this is a finished project. I am only guaging interest level from the people with the most likely ability to get involved.

 

In which case can I ask why you chose to develop a different (new) project (ie the project you have finished now) and not use one of the other projects ... this would be one thing I would look at for how you and the other developers would react if another major group of developers also decided to work on this or if they chose to work on other projects, including creating yet another new one.

[garrysaddington]

Ditto. If more information is given I would help where I can (I bring little to the table when it comes to programming, but I would happily test it and promote it as far as possible), however keeping the identity of "the developers" hidden and not providing a website or trial version seems a little contrary to the concept of Open Source IMO.

 

I can understand all the suspicion that may exist around such a project. So why don't we suspend the discussion until ScholarPack is released as open source in the next few weeks. So you can have a full open source MIS for free if you want. If you don't want then nobody is going to force you.

[garrysaddington]

In which case can I ask why you chose to develop a different (new) project (ie the project you have finished now) and not use one of the other projects ... this would be one thing I would look at for how you and the other developers would react if another major group of developers also decided to work on this or if they chose to work on other projects, including creating yet another new one.

 

I'll just answer this one. The development was started when there were no others around, I believe I started at around the same time as Freemis,Class and Schooltool . If you take your logic to the extreme then we would have no more new open source projects. If we release an open source project then of course anyone is able to pick it up and fork it. It is a risk you take in the open source world, but without risk the world would be a boring place don't you feel?

[mattx]

MIS Build

 

Being done by the ICT teacher at our school - don't ask me anything about it though, I'm steering well clear of it !! Databases bore the pants of me, been there, done that, got the T-Shirt many years ago on a IBM DB2 database in my old job.....

[vikpaw]

my question is who do i blame when an upgrade doesn't work, or if something goes wrong meeting the DFe's changes to their reporting needs.

at the moment i can blame Capita, and point the finger, i can demand why they didn't fix it, i would say, i'm not paying you my licence / support fee, if you can't get this sorted....

but if i recommend MIS x (free, open source) then they might point the finger at me

EDIT 'they' being the management, not Capita, though i think they would also enjoy wagging their fingers at me and laughing.

Edited May 20, 2010 by vikpaw
to edit

[Sarconia]

my question is who do i blame when an upgrade doesn't work, or if something goes wrong meeting the DFe's changes to their reporting needs.

at the moment i can blame Capita, and point the finger, i can demand why they didn't fix it, i would say, i'm not paying you my licence / support fee, if you can't get this sorted....

but if i recommend MIS x (free, open source) then they might point the finger at me

EDIT 'they' being the management, not Capita, though i think they would also enjoy wagging their fingers at me and laughing.

 

Whilst the MIS software might be free, surely you'd still have to pay if you wanted support?

 

Therefore you could still just as easily point the finger at the support company. As long as management are willing to pay for it of course (which they should be as without the licenses for an MIS it should be cheaper paying only for the support contract). There might even be a support option where they will remote on and do your upgrades for you.

[vikpaw]

Yes of course.

So now we're are looking for a reliable support company with experience, and good response time, and a cheap rate. Yes it's going to be cheaper than most products we are using, but convincing management it's worth the risk is what i think most of us have against going down this path.

On a small scale, for part of the solution yes, it's worth a go, but changing MIS is a mammoth task when going from one big supplier to another not so big one.